Beamforming systems in wireless networks, e.g., beamforming transmitters, receivers, and/or transceivers, provide directional signal transmission or reception by combining signals transmitted from or received by antenna elements of an antenna array such that signals at particular angles experience constructive interference, while others experience destructive interference. Such directional transmission/reception provides improved coverage and less interference in the wireless network.
The directional control of a beamforming system may be achieved by controlling the phase and relative amplitude of the signal applied to each antenna element. Thus, the performance of the beamforming system is inextricably tied to the accuracy of the phase control of each antenna element. Some systems implement local oscillator beamforming, which involves phase shifting the local oscillator signal for each antenna element to achieve the desired phase shift for the antenna element. Such solutions, however, do not always provide the desired phase shift quickly enough. In particular, if the time needed to shift the phase is too large to allow a change of phase between two consecutive data frames (transmitted or received) without significantly affecting the transmission or reception, the performance of the beamforming system will degrade. There is therefore a need for faster, and thus, improved phase control for beamforming systems.